COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US)

Saintaholic said
I believe you're applying your own economic standards and practices onto everyone in our society.

I know if my wife and I were to get $75,000 each, not a single thing would change about our lifestyle - and I am sure the case is the same for you as well as for many of the fine folks on this here thread. Sure we may pay off a couple of credit cards or put a little bit more money into our mortgage principle, but outside of that, she and I would still go to work every day and would not spend much of it.

On the other hand, you put that type of money in front of a teenager or young college student or person struggling, living paycheck to paycheck, and they'll suddenly feel like they're on top of the world and would not be the same person they were before or feel they need to work. You really think the average person working at a fast food joint would not become demotivated instantly?

You don't think infusing $75k across 150+ million U.S. adults would have an effect at all on the overall value of the dollar? Overall demand for everything would suddenly go drastically way up, especially for items already in high demand, such as my loaf of break example, so supply would essentially stay the same....see where this is going?

I said from the first sentence that it would probably shift the behavior pattern in a not insignificant amount of low wage earners, but that im not sure that is a bad thing long term. But that it wouldn’t lead to the sort of economic collapse you inferred. In a lot of ways, it is exactly the sort of wealth transfer this country needs(though I would do things differently if I’m writing it). As it would transfer excess and stagnate resources into real world demand all across the economy. How many people would fix that roof they needed, get that new car, buy that gym membership, start a retirement fund, go back to college, start that small business etc?

And to my larger point, it speaks more about how toxic our current system is that a one time payment like that could decouple a lot of people from their parasitic relationship with their low wage employer.

It would probably make things like the food sector take a hit if you didn’t ease the policy in so these companies would know they need to up their offer sheet to stay in business, but that is because it is one of the most toxic examples of our predatory capitalist system. People shouldn’t be forced to be in the ICU or die working at Kroger(several dozen employees so far) for a $2 raise on a pittance of an hourly rate, or forced to go to work at a meat plant for wages that still require government subsidies to live, all in an epidemic where if they quit they are locked out of any income because they won’t qualify for unemployment. Forcing them to choose homelessness or possible death as the CEO takes home 10’s of millions and pays out millions in dividends to millionaires and billionaires at a lower tax rate than they have in many cases.